Parenting
I wanted to share with you all my faves I’ve purchased over the last year. With four kids and a postpartum healing that just won’t let up, going the actual store during the day is a nightmare. Amazon has been my saving grace on that front. Going with the best two behaved kids to Target still resulted in crying//spittingup//frantic nursing//dragging toddler body on the ground, so online #foreverandever Linen Romper: I’m wearing this right now. I kinda live in it. Yes, I look like a polygamous sect wife gone wild, but hey, it’s awesome. Stretchable shorts: It’s called having four kids. Yes, I’m not embarrassed that my shorts are stretchable. Okay, maybe. But I LOVE these. I ordered a tad larger to be forgiving and they fit like a glove. So either my estimation of my own size is off (likely) or they run close to the bum. Epsom Salts: I soak in this salt almost every day. It’s really good for our aching bones, people. Naty: These diapers are the very very best. They never leak and they’re 100% compostable and the pull-ups work like a charm for potty trainers and little fat babies alike! Electric Kids Toothbrush: it plays a mash up of American kid songs and one we don’t recognize. BUT THEY BRUSH THEIR TEETH WITH THEM SO PRAISE! Lunchbox for the fall: After a whole school year of putting my son’s lunch in this velcro contraption that was half fabric, half wipeable, I had it. This…
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Here’s me and one of my best friends, my sister, Molly, and our youngest. She’s the woman behind Brooklyn Herborium hat I’m always talking about. I wrote a little while back about making friends as an adult and it really resonate with a lot of you! Nothing I love more than touching on subjects that are meaningful to my friends here, so thank you for all your feedback! I also talked with my good friend Nancy. She’s actually more like a dear friend. For years now she’s been an anchor in my real-life-meets-online group of ladies. If you haven’t entered into part of her movement to help women go deeper and get better at being their best selves, get a hustle on over to her site. If you haven’t listened to her podcast, I URGE you to go go go and listen now. I’m a guest this last episode and we got to talk F R I E N D S H I P. One of my favorite topics. Rounding that out, if you want to join the Community Leaders group for Blessed is She and see what we’re offering to start a community group, that link is here. If you want a sneak peak as to what I’ve been working hard on the past few months, that link is here!!! Back to family vacation week here in Saint Paul. Check you later, alligator! SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave
Read MoreMy little love, I watch you walk, run, and laugh with that mouth holding two adult teeth and marvel. How did the baby I never stopped holding and staring at become this bounding, bouncing being? They say the years go by so fast, but the days are long. Days with you have always zoomed by with baseball cards, audio stories, narrated baseball one player full field games, and periodic fast tickle laughs. I wouldn’t know any other way. Your little sisters and brother look up at this face of teasing, teaching, and tenderness. Not in any particular order. You can poke and prod like any pest but usually draw them into your world of games with invisible endless twists and turns. You look with an open heart. And share whatever you have in yours with theirs. When your dad and I watch you race your bike or pitch a curve ball, we rejoice at these signs of your growing and reaching toward what brings out that wide mouthed stretched eyes laugh. I also cry a little. Because I’m a mom. And want you to always be my baby at the same time that I want you to become more and more yourself. Our prayer for you this year: that you continue to grow in patience for our shortcomings and your siblings’ purposeful aggravations. May you feel the lightness that only love can bring into your daily mood. May you explore. May you experience God and seek His will in your…
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I dug up this oldie photo from around the time I started the blog. Who are these babies?? I just don’t even know. Would you help me out? I’m trying to sort through my work here and figure out how to do things better! Two second survey here. And one of you lovelies who takes it will be gifted a $100 amazon card as a token of my appreciation!! Also, a few places to connect with my newsletters: if you want to learn more about the mothering journey journals, the link is here. If you want handmade whole parenting goods discount codes & first peeks, the link is here. If you want to be subscribed to the blog, the link is here. (Tell me you’re subscribed already, people!!) That’s it & that’s all. Happy Saturdaying!
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Eight years ago we were wedding in Holy Matrimony and it was such a great day. I still remember trotting around my front yard at 10pm telling everyone I just don’t want this party to ever end. ALL MY FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE SAME PLACE! It was over 300 of our nearest and dearest, spanning my horse back riding days to his running days, law school friends, family from all over the country, and more. Looking at our photos, my first thought is wow I look so young! Followed quickly by I didn’t know so much. I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. What I did know was that I was crazy in love with this man, that I wanted to be with him always and forever, and that we would figure it out. Marriage starts to simplify, in a way, over the years. I no longer have hissy fits (is that even still a term?) over inane details. I actually know what kind of gifts he likes and doesn’t like. I actually understand his facial expressions and different intonations of grunts. I know what to expect from both of us when we go through pregnancy together, and that first year of a new baby. Marriage also becomes more thick. The disagreements now have years to fall back on for examples of how *she always does X* or *he never does Y.* We’ve learned and accepted each other’s flaws and failings, but the emotional response to those still shifts like the aftershocks of an earthquake.…
Read MoreHow do we do this? I just talked to a girlfriend who’s moving for her husband’s job relocation. With kids from college-aged to kinder. How do we make girlfriends as adults? I can tell you how many times I’ve been in a conversation where a woman has revealed that making adult female friends is the WORST. And I mean, worse than a spray poopie diaper or being out of chai tea latte mix at home. Friendships blossom over shared experiences, challenges, and triumphs. Sports team mates. Roommates. New Moms groups. Going to the same church. But as we enter into adulthood and leave the comfort of the easy-to-meet people school environment, it’s rough. For me, I went through a very awkward period of zero friends when we moved home from Vegas and I was looking for a job. My law school friends dispersed around the country, my college friendships were slim and hadn’t been tended to throughout law school, and my new work colleagues lived far away from where we were living. We set up our first home in a little condo in Minneapolis and spent nights cooking, talking, walking along the river. We joked to my brother that we were “couple’s shopping” in looking for friends who were married that we both liked. But in earnest, we were hoping for friendships. I was hoping for women who understood both my work and being pregnant, which seemed to be exactly zero. I slowly met women at church, but only by approaching them after…
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